On Sunset Highways: A Book of Motor Rambles in California

In 1915, California was being born again. The Gold Rush towns had faded into memory, the missions stood like broken promises along the coast, and a new gold was being discovered: the open road. Thomas D. Murphy invites readers into the passenger seat of his motor car for a series of rambles through a state caught between the old California of rancho days and the modern promised land of asphalt and opportunity. These are not guided tours. They are discoveries. Murphy drives through redwood forests and orange groves, past crumbling adobes and gleaming new subdivisions, along roads that twist through mountains and stretch across deserts. He stops at hot springs, explores ghost towns, marvels at the engineering of new highways, and remembers what California looked like before the crowds arrived. This is California at a hinge moment, preserved in prose before it transformed forever. For anyone who loves the romance of the road, the ache of lost landscapes, or the particular magic of seeing a place you thought you knew from an entirely new angle.